Comments from joycets684

This theatre was closest to my grandma’s house (and the Slovenian Home for Aged in which she died) and my mother admitted to spending time with my father “in the back row…” with dad when they were young.

I remember that my church of the 1960’s, St. Robert’s (on Lakeshore Blvd, about 24000)said their first masses were said at the Lake Theatre while the church was being built. This was before I was born. I always had the impression the Lake was the “expensive” theatre, and the Shore was the cheaper one. It may be that the movies at the Shore were more appropriate for kids however, as I was one and the parents were in charge. I am pretty sure I saw “the fly” and maybe “the blob” at one or another of these two. I grew up in Euclid Ohio.

I believe the 2nd floor version of the “split” varsity was in the early 1980’s. I worked at UT and we went to the Varsity fairly often. During the great Memorial Day Flood of 1981 a Disney cartoon feature (an old one)was showing, and we were there. When we left the theatre the flood was happening and the stop lights were not working or the street lights. I managed to see the street sign “rio grande” and thought that was funny because it was a river, a grand one. I believe in 1981 the movie we saw was on the upper floor, and it had been newly split to 2 floors.

The Texas Theatre, on the Drag (guadalupe) across from the University of Texas became an Eckerds Drug store in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s, and when CVS came in and took over the Austin Eckerd’s chain it became one of them. I was trying to comment on the Varsity Theatre on the Drag, down at 24th & Guad, and could not find a comment section there. I was in the Varsity during the great Memorial Day Flood of 1981. At that time I believe it had just opened the 2nd floor “twin theatre” version and a disney cartoon was showing (an old disney, not a recent one). When we left the roads were flooding.